Six Easter Treats (Without Overdoing The Calories!)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you can’t fail to have noticed the abundance of Easter homeware treats adorning the shelves of your local supermarket in the past few weeks. Special Easter mugs depicting rabbits enjoying afternoon tea and Easter wreaths are new to me. Since when did Easter become so… commercial? I don’t remember Easter wreaths being ‘a thing’ a couple of years ago?

Well, whatever the reason. I’m not complaining. If you’re a fan of this blog, you’ll know that springtime is my favourite season of them all. And Easter, being part of spring, is all part of the fun. I love the daffodils, the pastel colours, the little yellow chicks, the Easter egg hunts and of course, the long weekend!

Easter signals new beginnings and fresh starts much more so for me than the first of January. I think it’s to do with the weather getting better and the sunshine lasting longer… Ah, the sun! How lovely the sun is for those of us who have psoriasis.

Chick me out. Get it? Chick me out… (I’ll get my coat)

However, for many of us, Easter means one more thing: An avalanche of chocolate.

If you’re like me, then you’ll be familiar with this routine: No chocolate or ‘bad stuff’ for the days leading up to Easter, saving yourself for just a sensible-sized amount, and then, once Good Friday hits – WHAM! Drinks with colleagues, big family roast dinners, all followed up with a pile of chocolate eggs. Which is then followed up with guilt.

Oh, that chocolate guilt. Is there anything worse?

The jury is still out on whether chocolate or diet affects psoriasis. Many people have found success through cutting out dairy, gluten, salt, nightshades or meat out of their diet. But you’ll find plenty of other psoriasis sufferers who have tried every diet under the sun and had no luck with reducing the symptoms of their condition. That’s just the way this autoimmune disease is. What works for one, doesn’t work for everyone.

One fact remains pretty much the same for everyone though; we all adore chocolate! But indulging in a bit of the good stuff shouldn’t always incite guilt. With a careful bit of planning you can still enjoy some chocolate fun over the Easter break, without worrying about your waistline.

So let’s get cracking(!) with some fun ideas:

Guilt-Free Chocolate and Almond Smoothie

Smoothies are a healthy and fun way to start the day and are ideal for slurping en route if you’re rushing out of the house to grab a last minute egg for that nephew you forgot about. Just make sure you prep the ingredients the night before so you’re not in a panic in the morning.

This guilt-free chocolate and almond smoothie uses chocolate protein powder to fill you up, whilst still giving you a chocolate hit. It’s only 150 calories and contains less than 2grams of fat, so you can enjoy it without the guilt. The recipe is very psoriasis-friendly too as almonds are included, which are packed with skin-friendly vitamin E, copper, monounsaturated fats and biotin. If you’re following a vegan or dairy-free diet, this smoothie is ideal as it doesn’t involve cow’s milk. It’s the perfect Easter treat.

For an even nuttier twist, add a teaspoon of almond butter. You can also blend in a banana if you want a bulkier smoothie or fancy munching another of your five a day. Add water or extra almond milk to help the smoothie blend better. Don’t forget extra ingredients mean extra calories though, so bear that in mind!

Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

It’s absolutely glorious weather in the U.K. today, and do you know what I would love? Ice cream. A delicious White Chocolate Magnum, to be specific. Sadly, this treat ranks as one of the most calorific ice cream treats on the market (whelp!), clocking up 237 calories per ice cream and 13g of fat. That’s the equivalent of a small serving of McDonald’s fries and over 20% of your entire daily recommended fat allowance. Eeeek!

If you love chocolate ice cream too, don’t sweat, I have something for you. I found this almost-too-good-to-be-true chocolate banana ‘ice cream’ recipe online and you don’t need a fancy ice cream maker to create it either. In fact, there is only one step to the recipe! Can a one step recipe even be called a recipe?

Anway, I’ve made it myself and it is YUM. It’s super easy to do and because you only use one banana and a small bit of cocoa powder, you aren’t faced with a massive portion that you just have to eat all in one go. The best thing about this recipe is that you know exactly what you’re putting into your body. You can customise this baby too. Why not add a handful of chopped nuts? You can find the recipe here.

Chocolate BBQ Fun

Yes, you read that right. Chocolate and BBQs can make the perfect pairing!

I’ve always thought it a little odd that we get the family together for roast lamb and all the trimmings at Easter, when, if the weather is fine, a BBQ would be lots of fun and lends itself to a far more social gathering.

You can melt a square of 70% dark chocolate into regular bbq sauce to make an unusual chocolatey BBQ flavoured sauce, with added depth. Perfect for sausages to be dipped into.

Alternatively, if spicy food doesn’t aggravate your psoriasis, then this cocoa chilli rub recipe will certainly turn the heat up at your Easter BBQ gathering. And it uses our old favourite, cocoa powder!

Cooking up the sausages for dipping into the BBQ and chocolate sauce. Yum!

I’m using Philips BlueLight in this picture. It’s a great little device as it lets me treat my psoriasis whilst I get on with normal life. Like BBQ’ing!

Me BBQ’ing with Philips BlueLight

Chocolate Face Mask

Ok, so if you’re avoiding the consumption of chocolate altogether, why not treat yourself to a lovely homemade chocolate face mask? This vegan version is pretty simple to make, uses some of the cocoa powder from your banana ice cream recipe and is also anti-inflammatory.

Rich, indulgent and smells good too. What’s not to love? (Image courtesy of House Vegan)

If you like the idea of chocolate face masks, but don’t have time to make one or don’t have any spirulina knocking around (fair comment), you can just buy yourself one here.

Easter Nail Art

If you’re not suffering with nail psoriasis, then adding a cheeky bit of nail art to your digits is a cute way to take part in all the fun of Easter without piling on any calories in the process. There’s so many good designs on Pinterest I couldn’t possibly choose my favourite (it’s a toss up between the Nutella one and the Mini Egg one).

Definitely not my hand. My attempt at this would be disastrous, no doubt. (Image courtesy of Jo Alcock)

Most of these designs can be created with colours you’ve already got at home and the only other thing you need is a slim make up brush (or an old toothbrush in the case of the Mini Egg design!)

Oh, and you’ll want a steady hand too…

Easter Bunny Yoga

Ok, so the worst has happened. You’ve devoured the Lindt egg in less than a day.

You promised yourself a tiny piece every evening, but those tiny pieces grew bigger and bigger until one day, not long after you started, you find yourself sitting alone on the sofa with a few crumbs of chocolate on a tin foil sheet, a sick feeling in your stomach and some unwelcome negative thinking in your head.

If this isn’t you, then welcome to my world!

It’s ok. What’s done is done and can’t be undone, but you can give your mind and body a bit of a break in the form of yoga.

Bunny Yoga. I mean, who doesn’t want to do this? (Image courtesy of The Berry)

I don’t recommend you do any yoga straight after the egg inhaling episode, maybe wait until the next morning, but whatever you do, please try it.

I didn’t believe yoga could be any good either, but if it’s good enough for the likes of Jessica Biel, David Beckham and Beyonce, then we can certainly get involved too. Oh and the only equipment you need is your body. So let’s do this!

3 – Pin on your fridge, back of bedroom door or wherever you think you can squeeze in a little yoga time

4 – Promise yourself ten minutes a day to dedicate to this.

That’s all it takes. Ten minutes a day. That’s nothing. That’s the amount of time you spend on social media in bed in the morning, right? Oh. Maybe that’s only me. But whatever, you get my drift. I used to avoid yoga in the morning, as I was covered in sticky creams and various other psoriasis ointments. There simply wasn’t enough hours in the day to do everything! Now I’m treating my psoriasis with Philips BlueLight I finally have time to look after the rest of my body, not just my skin. And it’s because of this that I manage to do my ten minutes in the morning.

So I can’t even use treating my skin as an excuse not to get my mat out!

Get out of bed. Get to the rabbit poster. Get yoga-ing. And don’t you dare feel guilty about enjoying your Easter egg.

So, that’s it from me. How are you planning to spend the Easter weekend? What will you do with all your chocolate? Where have you pinned your Easter bunny yoga poster? Let me know in the comments!

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Hey there!

Hi, I'm Josie. I started this blog in 2016 to chart my journey with all things psoriasis. Hope you find some of these posts useful. Have a search around and do get in touch if you've got any questions or suggestions : )